Finally get a gloat - Walnut gloat, that is!

A few weeks ago a fellow from a town over called me about a guitar repair, he had cracked the guitar neck and heard about me.I took the job, and he turned out to be a FedEx driver who also used to refinish and was a fair woodworker himself, albeit currently without a shop.I did the work on the guitar, and when he picked it up he revealed to me that he had a whole walnut tree that had been planked rough and was stickered under cover, now going on 15 years racked. Would I be interested in some for say, $1.50 a board foot?Duh, yes!When the day came for me to call him to go pick it up, he called first. He said he had to come to my town to pick up a relative, and would I mind if he delivered about $100 worth to my house? Said it would save him time. Save him time? Wow, delivery? Hoorah!Duh, of course!What I got was old time walnut, some planks up to 14” wide, all of it 8’ to 10’ long. I got somewhere North of 70 board feet, rough cut, all at least 1” thick, with those lovely wide boards making up about half of it. No sap wood, which amazed me. He said they had cut it off when it was planked. He said the original tree was about 26-30” in diameter. He also threw in about 8 board feet of cherry which he didn’t want. We unloaded it into my driveway so I could fit it into my shop. He even offered to help me load it onto the racks, but I said he had done enough! My moisture meter said all of it was about 11% or less. I ran one plank through my planer, gawd, what beautiful stuff. I’m not even normally a huge walnut person, but this stuff is old growth knockout beautiful. Thanks, Chris from FedEx, wherever you are!

OK, I think I got this picture posting thingy down. Had to join photobucket to do it.

Here’s the walnut…these planks are 8’ and 10’ long.

But also, a lot of people have asked me how I stack lumber. On end, when you have about 800 board feet, and only a 12’ X 6’ area to store it! (Note my chime pipe stock stuck in there)

That picture didn’t cover it all, so here is the top part!

Here’s the scrap pile:

and here’s a nice closeup of the walnut:

Boy, doesn’t look this bad in real life!I also try to edge name all the species that are mixed, mostly by color. The right side is all domestic, oak, ambrosia maple, old oak, walnut, little chestnut, so no names. The scrap pile is where I try to work from first, to knock it down…Left side is mostly exotics, with wild colors on top, dark woods in the middle, and light ones on the bottom. (mostly)

Pat:Most of that scrap pile is a huge pallet of oak I got from a defunct furniture factory. Behind it are some poplar cuts, and at the bottom is the bigger oak planks, 24” by 8” or so. The stuff on top is exotics too small to go anywhere save on top.

The sad part is most of my exotic suppliers here in the Chattanooga area have dried up. I have to drive two hours in one direction to get exotic wood. Actually thought about opening an exotic wood store.